Self-checkout in retail sales transactions is an area of growing importance to retailers and customers alike. Retailers see benefits in reduced staffing costs, increased stock control and customer satisfaction, whereas customers benefit from the convenience and reduced queuing times associated with self-checkout.
Self-checkout terminals are known where the customer scans their items over a bar code reader at a terminal as they finish their shopping, for example the NCR FastLane supplied by NCR Corporation of Dayton, Ohio. However, this does not give the customer the opportunity of pre-scanning items during their passage around the retail store, prior to reaching the checkout. The provision of a set location for scanning of items results in queues forming at the self-checkout terminals, although reduced in comparison to manually operated checkouts.
An alternative approach to self-checkout is for the retailer to provide hand held barcode scanner for use by customers. This enables a customer to scan their purchases as they pass around the retail store thereby providing a bill for payment as the customer leaves the store. The bill is downloaded from the scanner either by docking the scanner in a docking station or connecting a lead to the scanner. This approach has infrastructural problems associated with it in that the store must provide the hand held scanners for use by the customers. The footprint of docking station where the scanner must be stored for collection by customers uses valuable retail footprint, leading to sub-optimal usage of the retail store. There are also maintenance issue associated with such a system in that the retailer is responsible for maintaining the scanners.